Con Artists Posed As Teamsters In Big Loan Scam

February 02, 1986|By James Warren.

When a top aide to a Boston sports entrepreneur made a recent phone call to Chicago`s Far Northwest Side, he received some cold, even distressing, news from George Lehr, executive director of the Teamster Central States Pension Fund.

After listening to Phil Malina for a minute or so, Lehr gingerly disclosed that the nation`s largest multi-employer pension fund knew absolutely nothing about a financial transaction that Malina thought was absolutely in the works.

Sorry, Lehr said, the fund had not, as Malina assumed, agreed to lend $30 million to financially embattled Billy Sullivan and his pride and joy, the New England Patriots. Moreover, the ``Charles Bertinelli`` who promised the loan was not a union trustee, as Malina had been led to believe.

``Lehr told me the guy was a crook,`` Malina recalled last week. ``I was very embarrassed and angry. And I pride myself on being professional.``

Malina and Sullivan, whose Patriots lost in the Super Bowl to the Bears, are not alone as victims of what appears to be a super scam.

They`re among individuals and companies, ranging from Canadian fur manufacturers to Maryland real estate developers, touched by a scheme that brought as much as $1.5 million to con artists posing as Teamster

representatives able to secure loans at rates as low as 7 3/4 percent.

Sources said the FBI is searching for the suspected con artists, notably the 300-pound Bertinelli, whose office was an Italian restaurant he owned in Salt Lake City and who bought a black Rolls-Royce in late December. He was last seen in Southern California.

Malina, who acted as agent for Sullivan`s family-owned Stadium Management Corp. (SMC), maintained that Sullivan knew ``absolutely nothing`` about a prospective Teamster loan. Though many victims paid a 1-percent finder`s fee to Bertinelli and others posing as Teamster representatives, Malina said Bertinelli ``never even asked`` for a fee from him.

Malina asserted that he did not disclose his loan pursuits to Sullivan, known to be in heavy debt and looking to sell the Patriots, until after getting a call Friday from The Tribune--or well after he contacted the union about the situation.

``Sullivan went through the roof and is very hurt by this,`` Malina reported back later. ``The Sullivans were not responsible. The ball stopped with me. It`s my job that`s on the line.``

Fees for bogus loans were paid by others. Daniel Bland, president of Dynasty Furs Inc. of Vancouver, British Columbia, said he`s out $200,000. He said a friend, Wolfgang Zink of Q.I.X. Corporations of nearby Richmond, paid $180,000 to Bertinelli for a loan.

``He came off as unsophisticated but believable,`` said Bland. ``He struck me as a truck driver who had risen to a high position. Obviously, I`m upset at myself for being so ignorant.``

Existence of a scam was intimated Jan. 23 by Lehr, head of a pension fund with $6.5 billion in assets and 400,000 beneficiaries in 32 states. Once considered a tool of organized crime, Central States, based at 8550 W. Bryn Mawr Ave., was the object of government pressure and litigation and is now deemed honestly and adeptly run.

But Lehr had offered no details when disclosing that ``some persons have apparently been using the name of the pension fund to make spurious `loan commitments` to would-be borrowers.``

Some specifics were learned through interviews, as an investigation by FBI offices in Chicago, Washington and Salt Lake City continues. Government officials say Lehr and the union have cooperated fully and are not implicated in wrongdoing.

According to several sources, the union learned of a scam when contacted by Paul Vardeman, a Kansas city attorney and former judge representing CRI Inc. of Rockville, Md.

The Maryland developer thought it had been approved for Teamster loans for a real estate syndication of two Texas hotels: the Austin Marriott and Nassau Bay Hilton, outside Houston. CRI could not be reached late Friday, but it apparently thought it was getting more than $30 million in two loans.

Those presenting themselves to CRI as affiliated with the Teamsters identified themselves as Norman Wheeler, Edward Cohen, James Craighhead, Don Luna and Alcy Baggot, sources said. Wheeler lied in claiming he was a consultant to the executive board of Central States, sources said.

Luna, a Tennessee developer, and Baggott are convicted felons who met at a federal prison in Montgomery, Ala., sources said.

The union was then contacted by Donald Barbour, president of Real Property System Inc. of Los Angeles. Barbour was led to believe that Central States had approved a $5.3 million construction loan for a Las Vegas office building.

Once again, investigators say, Wheeler and Luna were the supposed go-betweens. Barbour and CRI told investigators they did not pay fees for the assurances of low-interest loans. Some involved with the investigation suggest that some victims may want to avoid the embarrassment of acknowledging that they were taken.